


Songs for the Seven

by openmouthwideeye



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, JB Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 06:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8960611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openmouthwideeye/pseuds/openmouthwideeye
Summary: It's Brienne's first Long Night since she lost her mentor, and she's working hard to carry on their traditions. Things might go according to plan if she could just lose Jaime Lannister. Holiday traditions should not be this complicated.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mgsmurf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mgsmurf/gifts).



> Written as a JB Secret Santa gift for mgsmurf on JBO. Her words were: **snow angel, kiss, hot chocolate**.

_Moisture wicking my ass_ , Brienne thought sourly. She was never buying Wildling Winter Wear again. She winced as the cold sludge soaked through her running tights and into her underwear. Prickles stabbed her skin like embers from a popping fire, but the spreading numbness did nothing to distract her from the sharp ache in her tailbone. Her eyes pricked too, despite short, angry breaths dancing through the air like dragon smoke. _I’m sorry, Goodwin. I won’t set any records tonight._

Her sneakers skidded across the same ice patch that had sent her sprawling. Her legs fell heavily, akimbo in the melting snow. The hum of holiday revelry drifted across campus from Dornish Row, drunken bawdiness stripped clean by acres of cold and darkness. Far above, the Ice Dragon expelled its bitter breath as the Moonmaid twinkled out of sight, bolstering her strength to fight until dawn.

Brienne closed her eyes and threw her arms wide, pretending that she was home on Tarth making crooked imprints of soldiers on the damp, chilly beach. Goodwin never failed to grumble about sand in his shoes as he fanned his legs to make matching ladies.

“You know an Ironborn doesn’t award points for snow angels.”

Her eyes flew open at the familiar, taunting voice. Golden curls tumbled around Jaime Lannister’s cold-flushed face, framing an upside-down smile brighter than the moon-kissed snow. She wrenched into a sitting position, vaguely irritated at how deftly he avoided her forehead before it could break his nose for him.

“What do you want, Lannister?”

Instead of answering, he rooted through the snowdrift and emerged with her phone—the only thing asleep at Red Fork University. It stuttered back to life with an eerie, spectral glow.

“Twenty minutes until Maiden’s Hour.” Jaime’s smile was all feigned innocence. “There’s only so much time to find a virgin in need.”

She lurched to her feet, grunting as her tailbone screeched protest. Yanking the useless headphones from her ears, she snatched her phone from his frozen fingers.

_2:41 a.m._

She didn’t even pause for her customary glare. Stuffing her earbuds into her pocket, she sprinted down the icy path. Snow crunched until Jaime fell in beside her.

“ _Are_ you training for an Ironborn?” Even in leather shoes and an expensive peacoat, he didn’t look remotely out of sorts. The jerk.

“No.”

He kept pace and she grit her teeth, praying he’d grow bored and wander off. The idea of making smalltalk right then made Brienne want to scream. It was the first First Night in a decade that she wouldn’t PR. The first time it felt like it mattered.

 _I’m sorry, Goodwin,_ she thought again.

“I know people aren’t exactly your strong suit, so I’ll explain how this works. You say, ‘Why so dapper, Jaime?’ and I’ll go, ‘My frat brothers threw a house party and I barely escaped with my virtue.’”

She snorted. As if Jaime Lannister had ever had virtue.

A smile teased his lips. “So when I ask, ‘Is there a bear chasing you, wench?’, you say . . .”

 _I swear, if you make a joke about a maiden fair . . ._ She glared, unwilling to suffer his ridicule tonight of all nights. But when she met his eyes, they held none of the mockery she expected. Instead, she found a flicker of something that would have made her falter, had her feet not known their rhythm.

“I . . .”

She wrenched her eyes from his, swallowing hard. In the distance, Acorn Hall towered behind the squat shadow of the candlelit sept. The wind tore at her cheeks, but that wasn’t what made her eyes sting.

“I always run seven miles for Warrior’s Hour.”

She braced herself for the jokes, lobbed like snowballs cored with rocks.

None came. Silence stuck between them like the ice clinging to her shoelaces. It was almost like running with Goodwin again, air sharp in her lungs and a solid presence matching her stride for stride. They veered onto the sidewalk that ran parallel to the sept, shoes crunching on the hard-packed snow. In the stillness of Long Night, melodies from the sept harmonized with Jaime’s hard, even breathing—an oddly comforting medley.

“Tall enough to tempt the Last of the Giants, and you never outgrew Long Night traditions. I should’ve known.” His joke fell flat, at odds with the rich, unearthly chorus emanating from the sept.

Brienne said nothing, and for once, he didn’t press her. They rounded the sept and ran on, night unbroken but for the hymn of their footsteps keeping time to the Warrior’s Song. Their breathing grew heavier, short puffs that glittered in the air and blew back in their faces. She found herself wondering if the crystals dotting her lashes came from her breath or his.

Her heart thudded as she found a last burst of adrenaline. Taking the dorm steps two at a time, she tossed up a hand in hasty farewell. Swiping her I.D. without waiting for a response, she leaned against the wall inside, gulping stale air to cleanse her lungs.

 

* * *

 

The steam of the shower trailed Brienne into the hall, and then the cold set in. Her towel draped nearly to her knees, but a draft teased gooseprickles up her arms, and she was pretty sure that Megga’s chipped nail polish was no excuse for the color of her toes. Squeaking down the hall in wet flip flops, she yearned for the space heater chugging merrily away beside the weirwood on her desk.

The warmth of her room enveloped her like the Mother’s embrace. Brienne sighed at the sweetness of it . . . and promptly dropped her towel in shock.

Jaime Lannister sat at her desk, hair glistening with melted snow, idly twirling her whittling knife. He turned at her indignant yelp, mocking grin just waiting for her to stumble into it. “Haven’t you ever carved a weirwood before? Father Above—”

She caught her towel in the nick of time, pinning it to her chest, but the sight of her dripping onto the carpet chased off the rest of his insult.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, braced for some flippant cruelty, but Jaime sat frozen, eyes nearly black with horror. She must look like a drowned cow with her gaping mouth and wet-straw hair. His gaze felt like hands pressing into her skin, catching on the water that dribbled from her hair to soak her towel.

Steeling herself, Brienne glanced down: lime green flip flops, terrycloth like a sack covering her from knees to chest, the faint curve of her rosy—

She jerked the towel up over her chin, but it was too late. The pink spread, fanning across her shoulders like a taunt. _Jaime Lannister just saw your nipple_. Her stomach churned as flames licked up her neck.

He jerked around to the little potted weirwood, fingers white on the knife. “I think you missed the point of Maiden’s Hour, wench. Or were you hoping not to celebrate this year?”

The implication made her flinch. _He’s not your friend,_ she reminded herself. _He’s bored, and you’re an easy target_.

“What do you want, Jaime?” she snapped.

Tension rolled across his shoulders, but when he grinned over one, he looked as careless and cocky as ever. “Why, you, of course.”

Her hand pinned the towel so tightly against her throat that she thought she might choke. Her other arm curled around her middle, pressing tight to quell its unrest.

“Who else on campus is sober enough to commiserate over getting ditched for the holidays?” He stabbed the heart tree, twisting the knife with his smile. “Or did you plan on finding some long knight to help you reach blessed Dawn?”

Brienne wrenched the knife away. Bone-white wood fell in chunks across the table, and bloody sap welled from a fresh eye in the middle of the weirwood’s forehead.

“Do you want to bring the old gods down on us?” she hissed.

“Don’t tell me you believe in snarks and grumkins, wench.”

Scowling, she leaned in, brandishing the sticky knife. The thought of jabbing it through his ribs was all too tempting. “Jaime Lannister, I swear by the gods old and new—”

Her towel slipped. Brienne clapped an arm across her breasts, ignoring the sting as the whittling knife sliced her skin. She caught the towel at her navel and jerked it up, shivering as it fell open to expose her gooseprickled backside. Jaime scrambled out of the chair, looking like he’d rather be literally anywhere else as he dusted imaginary wood shavings from the long, crooked front panels of his coat.

“Do I need to explain the concept of Maiden’s Hour to you, wench?”

Brienne grit her teeth, blushing brighter than the bleeding heart tree. And Jaime Lannister must have had the gods on his side, because at that moment her phone trilled, announcing the hour.

_The Maiden dances through the sky,_

_she lives in every lover’s sigh._

_Her smiles—_

His laughter drowned out the rest of the hymn.

 

* * *

 

“Wench, I know you’re morally opposed to anything that could make life easier, but you could’ve cast on for me. Do you know how long it takes to knit a scarf?”

Her laundry basket thudded to the floor, sacrificing a sock to the space behind the dresser.

“What are you doing?” she asked dumbly. Because surely Jaime wasn’t reclined on Megga’s bed over an hour after she’d ordered him out, watching _The Swordwench’s Last Stand_ as he clacked away with her garish pink knitting needles.

It was four in the morning. Sleep deprivation had finally caught up with her.

“Helping.” His tone suggested he would let her dimness slide due to his boundless generosity, but she really should step up her game.

She was too flabbergasted to care. “Helping _what_?” she spluttered. “You’re supposed to be gone.”

“I’ll take that as a no.” He pulled his attention from the gristly sight of white walkers gored by the Beauty’s flaming sword. Megga’s green-and-gold bedspread paled beside his eyes, flashing with the light of melting ice-zombies. Brienne’s heart parried to the rhythm of the blade. It made Jaime’s patented ‘let me enlighten you’ look twice as maddening.

“You don’t have a prayer of finishing in Smith’s Hour, no matter how many gods you call on. ‘Slow and steady’ never met Lhazari wool.” His fingers moved nimbly, and the yarn leapt free of the needle. She thought he’d ruined the scarf until the steel clashed back together, building a new row on top of the old. “If you wanted something for a Dawn gift, you should’ve gotten a crochet hook. Or an embroidery hoop. More stuck fingers, but . . .”

Strips of plastic curled around his socks, and the ball of yarn danced at his feet like a kitten. Her heart twisted painfully with every tug of yarn.

Jaime paused, analyzing his creation. “We could turn it into an oven mitt, I guess. It’s too late for a tea cosy, unless the pot’s as large and square as you are.” He inclined the sparkly blue rectangle in her direction, waggling it in some farce of friendly teasing.

Brienne grimaced, stooping to collect her laundry. She had a newfound loathing for her House colors, and his unexpected skill with a needle was half of it. “Do whatever you want,” she muttered, “it’s your scarf.”

Golden brows knit together. Working quickly, he tied off the row and bundled the needles, threading them through the ball of yarn. “Don’t get your towel in a twist, wench. I’m not stealing your Smith’s tradition.”

He tossed the bundle onto her bed, sticking the landing. Blue and pink winked up at her, a mockery of House Tarth’s quartered azure and rose. Suddenly, all she wanted was cry into her pillow, while calloused hands patted her hair and Goodwin assured her that it was fine, her septa was abroad and her father would be home by Dawn.

 _I don’t want to face Long Night alone._ A childish thought. But cowardly as it was, it was easier to stay in the Riverlands than to wallow at Evenfall Hall, waiting for her father and his paramour to arrive at daybreak.

Brienne upended her laundry, burying the yarn and thoughts of home under a mountain of clothes.

“Well, sorry for tainting your yarn, then,” Jaime grumbled, shoving off the bed. “Don’t worry, it’s easier to unravel than it is to knit the stupid thing.”

Brienne grabbed the first item from the pile: her Wilding Winter Wear running tights. Without pause she balled them up and chucked them towards the trashcan.

“I can’t knit.”

“Don’t take it out on me. I’m not the one who decided Long Night was a good time to learn.”

“I don’t _want_ to learn,” she nearly growled. “It’s not my Smith’s Hour tradition; my septa sent it as a Dawn gift.”

“Ah.” He shifted, faint embarrassment ringing in the silence. It didn’t last long. “They weren’t gift-wrapped.”

She shook out her frustrations with her t-shirt. “I opened them last week. Septa Roelle always gives gifts she prays might turn me into more of a _woman.”_ As if that were possible. Jaime Lannister—frat-boy, jock, golden boy of Westeros—could knit better than she could. The Father may be just, but the world wasn’t. “It’s better to get them out of the way.”

Goodwin had called her septa’s annual pilgrimage a gift of the Seven, and given Brienne her gifts the moment the woman stepped onto the ferry. It didn’t make them hurt any less.

Jaime dropped onto Megga’s bed, nonplussed. “So what do you do for Smith’s Hour? Pottery? Forestry? Welding?”

“Laundry. Dishes. Wrapping presents. But my roommate went home for Dawn, and I already mailed off my dad’s gift.” She kicked her laundry basket under the bed.

“Boring,” he said blandly. “Smith’s Hour is about creating, not keeping busy.”

“Oh?” she shot back, “and what do _you_ do during Smith’s Hour?”

His eyes shifted to the weirwood on her desk. Brienne almost said, ‘ _What happened to snarks and grumkins?’_ but his face was strangely solemn, like he’d wandered into a sept for the first time since childhood. The words melted on her tongue.

“When my mother was alive,” he said, “we’d carve our weirwood and plant it in the Stone Garden. They never grew much, but she used to say the heart trees would remember Long Nights for us, even after . . .” He shrugged. “That’s how I remember her. In the gardens, with dirt on her hands and Father’s handkerchief draped across her lap.”

Brienne sank down on Megga's bed, heart lodged in her throat. He looked up as if he were surprised to see her. Her fingertips tingled, and she realized she was tracing the seam of his sleeve, flirting between sweater and skin. He watched her freckled fingers, caught between then and now _,_ until Brienne lost her courage and retreated. She scrubbed her hand on her sweatpants, but he lingered on her skin like a weirwood’s eyes.

Jaime shook off the memory with a wry smile. “Anyway, it’s better than laundry. Half the time the weirwood services burn the trees, or else they’re dumped in a mass plot to rot.” His expression turned mocking. “We wouldn’t want to anger the gods.”

She weighed her response. Every word felt wrong.

“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal,” she said finally. “To plant on school grounds. Without a permit.”

The light in his eyes faded from high summer to silver snow-shadow.

“Well,” he said dryly, “far be it from me to besmirch Brienne Tarth’s moral code.”

She swallowed hard and grabbed her coat.

 

* * *

 

Her fingers ached as the spatula-turned-trowel clattered to the ground, but a smile tugged at Brienne’s chapped lips. The weirwood swayed amid churned earth and snow, looking oddly at peace in the little clearing. Campus security was due for another sweep any minute, but Jaime abandoned his post to offer her a dirt-stained glove. She could barely bend her fingers enough to grip it, but he managed to pull her to her feet. His fingers flexed, massaging feeling back into her hand. After an hour trading places in the snow, they'd learned a few tricks.

“It’s crooked,” he said, tilting his head. Moonlight silvered his golden curls until they almost seemed to glow. With his flushed skin and bloodless lips, he looked like an Other from some teen drama, so perfect you’d sigh as he stole hope from your eyes.

“The ground’s frozen,” she reminded him. “And anyway, if you wanted a perfect tree, you shouldn’t have stabbed it.”

A cold wind clawed them, and the red leaves of the heart tree rustled admonition. Heat skittered away as he mocked a bow at the weirwood. “Sorry. But I did save you from a landfill.”

The wind whispered again, and Brienne shivered. He knit their fingers together. It could have been practicality or comfort, or something else, an echo of the fledgeling feelings that had rooted in her ribs when she wasn’t paying attention. She wondered if Goodwin watched through weirwood eyes, shaking his head at the softness of her heart.

Jaime broke the stillness with a laugh, pointing across the quad with their joined hands. “Look, wench, it’s the Crone’s lantern.” In the sprawling blackness of Long Night, the cafeteria glowed like a beacon of the Seven in truth. He leaned in, warm and conspiring and irritatingly tempting. “I bet they have hot chocolate.”

She rolled her eyes, glad the night hid her flush, and didn’t resist when he pulled her up the path under the watchful eyes of their crooked heart tree.

 

* * *

 

“So whose effigy will we be burning for Stranger’s Hour? Your septa? Megga? Me?”

The shroud of the Stranger’s hymn blanketed the twilit morning, but Jaime shrugged it off like a damp coat. The Stranger had met them in the woods, in numb fingers and a blood-and-bone heart tree. Now it was nearly Dawn.

She leveled a look at him, and he grinned. “Brienne Tarth, too noble to sacrifice effigies of her enemies? Stranger take me, I never would’ve guessed.”

“I like Megga fine,” she said pointedly.

Jaime laughed. Warmth flooded her, like that first sip of hot chocolate, curling in her chest and exploding outward. A smile tugged at her lips, so she tucked her chin into her bundled scarf, already dewed with hidden mirth.

“There’s a prayer room in Acorn Hall,” she said. “We could light our candles there.” No mournful dirges in hollow, hallowed halls. No snickering students, drunk and stumbling from Long Night celebrations. Just a quiet room with him kneeling beside her, as he had in the snow.

“And then what?” He cast her a sidelong glance. “We pray for Dawn?”

Brienne snorted into her scarf, then bit her lip, glancing back at the sept. Behind its walls singing had given way to silent prayer, but its windows scrutinized her like the eyes of her septa.

“I can never find the words,” she admitted.

“Praise the gods. I can’t either.”

She should feel bad about that, but his admission eased her guilt.

“So?” He pivoted to walk backwards, matching her steps in reverse. Sleep hazed his eyes, making starbursts of the gold flecks, but it did nothing to dampen his enthusiasm. “I didn’t sacrifice a night with my pillowtop for nothing. How are we spending Stranger’s Hour?”

She stuffed her hands into her pockets, reflecting on Long Nights long past: a parade of candles and hymns and memories, whispered like confessions to a man trying his best, who gruffly reminded her to hide the pictures before her father got home.

She met Jaime’s eyes, bright with impatience as he waited for her to decide.

“There’s an EssosBox in the student center.”

He stopped in his tracks. “ _Kingswood Brotherhood_?”

Her boots hit a patch of ice. Her stomach lurched as she skidded, fighting to keep from plowing into him. He caught her by the elbows and—by the grace of the gods—kept them from tumbling into the snow. Distantly, she wondered if this was the same patch of ice that had bruised her tailbone. If so, it had lost its edge. Instead of sprawling in the sludge, cold and defeated, she was flush against Jaime, heart thudding a rhythm fit to wake the dead.

His breath fanned across her neck, so close she felt his mouth move when he murmured, “Careful, wench, or I’ll make you play Merrett Frey.”

As if it were anyone’s fault but his.

She righted herself, scowling, even as her body betrayed her with a blush. “Just for that, we’re playing _The White Book_ instead.”

 

* * *

 

The couple in the corner had been celebrating First Light for ages when the echo of sept bells caught Brienne’s ear. She held her breath, straining to hear, until they piped through the campus sound system. Then they rolled through the empty student center like a call to arms: _Dawn-Dawn-Dawn_. Her heart seized as if she were a warrior at the Wall, watching the first rays of sunlight crash over a triumphant battlefield. Only instead of waning at daybreak, her battle rose with Dawn.

Licking her lips, she glanced at Jaime. He’d been slumped on the couch since their second quest, playing on autopilot. He roused at the clamor, hair mussed and eyes bleary. His lips twitched with some half-formed quip, something tailored to derail her from sentimentality and steal her easy victory. Mustering her courage, Brienne angled across the cushions and kissed him full on the mouth.

First Light was chapped, and warm, and _greengreengreen_ as his eyes went wide, framed by sunburst lashes and a startled flush of sunrise, high and pink on his cheeks. She pressed for one second—two—and retreated, heart racing, fingers shaking, blood hot beneath her skin. Her face flushed, as surely the warriors’ must have, alight with foreign hope as they exulted in the morning rays.

The breath she held escaped in a burst that ruffled his hair. “Blessed Dawn, Jaime.”

He blinked, dragging his teeth across his lower lip, tasting for the truth of what she’d done. Her shoulders braced as hope and fear and some giddy, nervous energy clashed in her gut.

“Now _there’s_ a tradition I recognize.”

 _Everyone knows you kiss at First Light._ Brienne knew how to hedge her bets. She’d had a lifetime of practice, wrapping her feelings in the cover of darkness. She opened her mouth to offer some bland agreement, but her tongue betrayed her.

“I’ve never celebrated it before.”

An unsettling glint sparked in his eyes. “Oh?” A smile teased his lips, arch enough that she didn’t know if he meant it for mockery or charm. When he leaned in, her breath caught in her throat. “And you figured, while you had me at your mercy . . .”

 _No_ , she thought, _that’s me_.

Suddenly he was a breath away, hand snaring the fabric of her sweatpants as he braced it on the cushion. Her lips parted, pulse racing, even as some distant part of her screamed that this couldn’t be real.

Abruptly the bells ceased. Jaime paused. “The tradition ends with First Light.”

“I know.” Her lips felt numb. She waited, heart pounding, for him to advance or retreat, praying that he’d end it quickly instead of hovering, _almost_.

He drew back. Despite having wished for it, Brienne felt the loss keenly. Daylight filtered through the window, making her midnight hopes seem dim and foolish.

“You’re not going to make me suffer through a day full of Dawn traditions, are you?”

“No.” Her throat gave ground grudgingly. She cleared it. Shrugged. Surrendered to the comfort of the cushions and the familiar, unyielding EssosBox controller in hand. “I don’t really have any.”

“Thank the gods.”

And then his hand was in her hair, and her heart was dueling his, and Jaime Lannister pushed her back against the cushions, pressing insistent kisses against her plump lips. Warning bells clamored in her head as their hearts crashed together. Her brain scrambled to keep up, but the yearning in her gut knew what to do, bidding her to cup his jaw, draw him closer, guard her victory. Their victory.

She kissed him fervently, until she could no longer ignore the screaming in her lungs. When she drew back, gasping, his mouth curved into a smile. Pink and glistening, it looked as thoroughly trounced as hers must. His expression was all innocence, so she knew his quip would be anything but.

“So, wench,” he said in a tone that made her want to repent to the Maiden, Mother, and Crone, “does this count as our Maiden’s Hour tradition next year?”

Her glare could have summoned the Stranger. Laughing, Jaime dipped to nip the spot below her ear, and scowl and senses scattered.

It was a blessed Dawn, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback for my Christmas stocking! <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Songs for the Seven](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14165820) by [esanabridges](https://archiveofourown.org/users/esanabridges/pseuds/esanabridges)




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